Introduction
Psychological evaluation of juvenile offenders is an important part of the juvenile court system. This is because the main purpose of the juvenile justice system is the rehabilitation of the juvenile offenders who exhibit different psychological problems and others are raised by dysfunctional families. This means that a juvenile offender may require psychological treatment, assistance with their education, or treatment for a substance abuse problem. Provision of the right rehabilitation service will help in reducing the chances of recidivism. The psychological evaluation of the juvenile offenders may reveal some valuable information to the juvenile court that might assist in the development of a proper rehabilitation plan.
A psychological evaluation may be ordered by the court on request by either the defense or prosecution or if the defense simply chooses to have an evaluation done and submitted to the court to be considered in sentencing. Three clinical issues that are mostly evaluated by forensic psychologists in juvenile offenders are psychosocial maturity and development, nature and extent of antisocial behavior, and risk of future offending.
Maturity and Development
Adolescents are differentiated from adults by the fact that they are always in a state of change. They are always evolving in physical, cognitive, social, emotional capacities and characteristics. The juvenile justice system is frequently interested in the juvenile’s offender degree of maturity to make informed decisions concerning culpability and disposition. In most cases, the juvenile courts determine juveniles’ maturity status based on their ages, physical development or severity of the alleged offense.
Many psychology books have a matrix that shows the average age that certain maturity characteristics usually occur. However, the reality is that there is a great disparity between age and the rate at which development of different social, cognitive, and emotional characteristics occur. Also, the matrix cannot be effectively applied to the juvenile justice system. This is because they are based on Caucasian middle-class youth yet low-class minority youths are the ones who are most affected by the juvenile system. Research shows that economic class may play a role in the development of certain characteristics (Borum & Otto, 2014).
Physical development is easy to gauge and is also easy to assume a young person with the physical features of an older person must have all the cognitive and social capacities of and adult. However, this is also not a reliable determinant of psychosocial maturity because different capacities emerge and develop and different unrelated rates.
The severity of an offense is should also not be used as a marker of a juvenile offender’s development status despite philosophies like “adult time for adult crime (Cruise, 2006).” Such slogans suggest that a teenager who commits a serious crime must have adult cognitive, social and emotional capacities.
Forensics psychologists define psychosocial maturity in relation to the relevant legal decision making of the juvenile justice system. The decision-making process is determined by three developmental capacities; responsibility, perspective, and temperance. Responsibility is the ability to make self-reliant decisions that are not affected by external influence. Perspective has two components; interpersonal that is the ability take another person’s perspective and using a different view to understand it and temporal that is the ability to see and consider short-term and long-term repercussions of a decision. Temperance is the ability to use self-restraint and control oneself. The psychologists should assess these three specific capacities and not just infer them from factors that may not be related.
Violence Risk
The risk of juvenile offenders engaging in future violence is present at almost every stage regardless of whether the juvenile offender is processed in an adult or juvenile justice system. The importance of this is to determine whether an offender can be released pending trial. At the trial, it is an important factor in determining the required level of security and whether the juvenile offender should be sentenced or released.
There are two types of violence risk assessments used in youth; general risk assessment and threat assessment. General risk assessment is the evaluation of whether and to what extent a juvenile offender might be involved in violent behavior towards anyone within a specified time period. Threat assessment is conducted when a juvenile offender has been involved in some behavior or communication that raises concern about the potential risk of violence. The assessments require different approaches, but in this case the juvenile justice system is concerned with the general risk assessment that is more common in the system.
Most referral questions include implications of risk management or reduction. Since the purpose of the assessment is to prevent violent behavior, the assessment should be tailored to fit the goal. Assessment of violent behavior should not just focus on the individual but include available records and interviews of collateral informants. A structure known as Structured Development Judgment (SDJ) with accompanying instruments has been developed to ensure systematic comprehensive evaluation. Although SPJ instruments for children and youth is relatively new, two instruments have shown great promise. The instruments are Early Assessment Risk Analysis (EARL) and Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY).
EARL is designed to help forensic psychologists make judgments regarding future violence among boys below the age of 12 years exhibiting behaviors deemed to be high risk. The tool has 20 risk items divided into three categories; family items, child items, and responsitivity items. Each risk item is assigned a score of 0, 1, or 2 depending on its severity. A parallel tool with the same domain name and most similar factors has also been developed to assess girls.
SAVRY specifically focuses on the risk of violence risk in teenagers and has 24 risk items and six protective items. The risk items are divided into three categories; historical, individual, and social. The risk items are assigned a three-level coding structure that is high, moderate, and low. Protective items are just assigned two-level structures, that is present and absent.
Antisocial Behavior and Character
The construct of psychopathy in adults is constructed using two distinct dimensions. The first is interpersonal that includes disregard in emotional experience such as lack of guilt. The second is social deviance that involves antisocial lifestyle like impulsivity. However, there are some concerns regarding psychopathic analysis and labels to adolescents. The concerns involve; personality disorders should only be diagnosed in adult age, psychopathy cannot be effectively evaluated in adolescents because of development overlap, and labeling a teenager a psychopath could have potential consequences that are ethically problematic. There are empirical evidence regarding arguments for and against concerns involving the application of psychopathic assessment in juveniles.
Although psychopathic disorders should not be diagnosed until someone reaches 18 years does not mean the associated behavioral pattern are not observed until adulthood. Empirical research done suggest that most of the traits similar to those that confirm psychopathy in adults can be reliably identified in teenagers. There are also arguments that psychopathy cannot be reliably evaluated in teenagers because of too much overlap between normal and psychopathic behavior to make a meaningful distinction. Empirical studies show that it is possible to distinguish between adolescents who are high or low with regard to given behaviors. The argument concerning labeling a youth a psychopath has so many negative implications that an individual may end up losing his or her identity once the term is applied. Empirical studies show that psychopathic characters adolescents have not been definitely established. This means that labeling a teenager a psychopath is not only problematic but could also be inaccurate. Based on the empirical studies it is seen that there is no definite evidence concerning the construct of psychopathy. Therefore, care and caution should be exercised in any clinical diagnosis and description of psychopathy (Mackenzie, 2014).
Conclusion
Psychological evaluation plays a very important role in assisting the juvenile judicial system to choose the correct rehabilitation plan for juvenile offenders. The clinical issues mostly assessed by forensic psychologists that are of the greatest concern to the juvenile courts are maturity development, violent risk, and antisocial behavior. Even though there are many issues against psychopathic evaluation of adolescents, empirical research shows that the diagnosis should be done with care and caution.
References
Borum, R., & Otto, R. (2004). Evaluation of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System. Retrieved from https://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/26/download/
Cruise, K. R. (2006). Special Issues in Juvenile Jusice. Retrieved from http://www.apcj.org/documents/2_3_Juveniles.pdf
Mackenzie, P. M. (2014). Psychopathy, antisocial personality & Sociopathy: The basics A history review. Retrieved from http://www.theforensicexaminer.com/2014/pdf/MacKenzie_714.pdf
